Humans are complicated. You could get 100 people in a room who all agree on their favorite movie and they would argue about why and accuse each other of not appreciating it correctly.
You could poll people about what color blue is and while blue would still come in first, there would be other answers.
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Know what isn’t complicated? Raccoons. Raccoons are amazing and potentially the great unifier of humanity. Yes, for real.
The North American Raccoon got its English name from the indigenous Powhatan/Algonquian word arahkun, which loosely translates to “one who rubs with its hands.” Its name in Spanish is mapache, which is derived from the Nahuatl word mapachtli. Nahuatl is a group of languages that was the predominant language spoken in Central America prior to the Spanish-Aztec War and the colonization of the Americas. Mapachtli roughly translates to “the one who takes things in its hands.”
Pretty similar, right? It’s just those two languages, right? There’s no way every single culture that has ever laid eyes on a raccoon unanimously decided that this animal’s defining characteristic was that it looks like it washes its hands and food, right?
No, that’s exactly what happened. While some languages have used their own variants on arahkun/raccoon, (rakun in Albanian, Croation, Bosnian, racún in Irish, rakkun in Maltese), those that have their own name for raccoons all agree that the most important thing about this small North American mammal is its perceived hygienic habits.
Here is an incomplete list of different names for raccoons in different languages and what they mean. Eagle-eyed readers might see a pattern below.
| Language | Name | Etymology | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | Waschbär | wash(en) (”to wash”) + bär (bear) | Washing bear |
| Dutch, Afrikaans | Wasbeer | wassen (to wash) + beer (bear) -- believed to be derived from the German waschbär | Washing bear |
| Luxembourgish | Wäschbier | wäschen (to wash) + bier (bear) | Washing bear |
| Danish, Norwegian | Vaskebjørn | Vaske (to wash) + bjørn (bear) | Washing bear |
| Icelandic | þvottabjörn | þvottur (washing) + björn (bear) | Washing bear |
| Swedish | Tvättbjörn | Tvätta (wash) + björn (bear) | Washing bear |
| French | Raton Laveur | Raton (young rat) + laveur (washer) | Washing rat (Combo breaker!) |
| Occitan | Lo Raton Lavaire | Occitan is a dialect of the French language used in the southern part of the country, Monaco and parts of Spain and Italy. The etymology is almost the same as its French counterpart | Large washing rat |
| Italian | Orsetto lavatore | Orsetto (bear cub) + lavatore (washer) | Little washing bear |
| Portugese | Ratão-lavadeiro | Ratão (rat) + lavadeiro (washer) | Washing rat |
| Chinese | Huànxióng | Huàn (to wash) + xióng (bear) | Washing bear |
| Japanese | Araiguma | Arai (washing) + kuma (bear) | Washing bear |
| Catalan | Ós rentador | Ós (comes from ursus, the Latin word for bear) + rentador (washing) | Washing bear |
| Finnish | Pesukarhu | Pesu (washing) + karhu (bear) | Washing bear |
| Estonian | Pesukaru | Pesu (washing) + karu (bear) | Washing bear |
| Bulgarian | Mieshta mechka | Mieshta (washing) + mechka (bear) | Washing bear |
| Hungarian | Mosómedve | Mosó (washing) + medve (bear) | Washing bear |
| Slovak | Medvedík čistotný | Medvedík (teddy bear) + čistotný (clean) | Clean bear |
Even the raccoon’s scientific name, procyon lotor, references this as lotor is Latin for “washer.” It used to be a part of the Ursus genus before getting its own genus, procyon, so there was a period in time where its scientific name translated to “washer bear.”
Even though washing is the core part of its entire identity across every culture that exists, raccoons don’t actually wash their hands or food. It just looks like they do. Raccoons are believed to have the most sensitive sense of touch out of any known animal and their paws have more than 10 times the number of nerve endings than human hands. In a study, researchers found that wetting the skin increased nerve responsiveness. It’s theorized raccoons can learn more about their food by dunking it in water beforehand.
One could do a deep dive into why the only thing every person in humanity agrees on is not true, but I’d like to focus on the good: we agree. We found the one thing that people can agree on. We’ve solved politics, everyone!
More on Michigan’s wildlife, including bats, beavers, deer and more, can be found on the Department of Natural Resources website.